It’s the final week before the first hand in so I spent as much time as possible finishing these decorations. When sewing the petals, the central one is slightly different to the others. The one in the centre has an extra layer with a loop of piping that the bodice decoration sits inside, while the others have a single strip of piping sewn up the centre. I did notice that the layers distorted and wrinkled a little as they were sewn, ending up with excess fabric on one side that shouldn’t be there.
Moving back to the bodice decoration, I unpicked the piping and cut up the centre. I then re-sewed everything, lining up the layers at the centre instead of the outer edges. In doing this, I noticed that the layers at the bottom had shrunk across the width. It’s better than how it was before but I am really not happy with the shaping of it now.
Because they were so distorted, the petal decorations and bodice decoration needed a backing fabric to try and pull them back to their original shape. I have run out of the fabric that should be used, so I had to resort to using the old blue cotton to back the petals. This hasn’t quite given it the support it needs but when everything is sewn down to the tutu plate, it looks better. The only other thing that needed doing before sewing everything together was to hem the petals and bodice decoration.
With all individual elements complete, it was time to start putting the pieces together. I began with a test fitting, pinning the petals and orange decorations into place with the bodice on top to decide on the positioning of them. The hardest part of this was trying to make sure it looked as symmetrical as possible.
The remainder of this week was just spent hand sewing with a ladder stitch all elements to the top plate and each other. The only difference is between sewing the petals and orange decorations to the plate. On the illustration, there are two grey shapes underneath the lower bodice shaping and I haven’t been able to plan those pieces until now. With the petals permanently in place, I cut the oblong shapes to size and sewed black markings on them to replicate what is seen in the illustration. These were allowed to be a little oversized as the edges become covered by the decorative elements on top.
To get the tutu ready for the hand in, I quickly appliqued the bodice decoration to the bodice and secured the bodice to the tutu plate.
While this is the finished state for the hand in, I do think I will make changes to the tutu before it goes up on display. I am really not pleased with the shaping of the bodice decoration and all elements need to be sewn to the tutu plate with a tighter stitch than the loose stitches I have done for the sake of speed. There are a few smaller things that also need to be done such as the fastenings on the centre back orange decoration so that it can be secured closed without the use of pins.